wanted: realistic reasons to buy a mac

[edX]

yesterday a friend asked me what kind of reasons he might give to his dad to convince him to get him a mac. his dad thinks macs are overpriced and not very functional. his dad is also concerned about the family being able to use the mac. so what he wants are some reasons the mac is easy to use, will do everything that the family expects a computer to do and wil be worth the extra money.

He is not looking for things like speed or other obvious stuff that has been debated to death. he is looking for more real life day to day user stuff. in other words he wants to make a rational presentation at an average computer user level that will persuade his dad to reconsider his viewpoint.

i think points here should include osx and 9 as well as their compatability along with hardware issues. answering public media criticisms would also help.

I will start off by offering the stability of the osx/classic environment as a good reason. For the average user, this system combo offers exceptional reliability with no need to go thru a complete reboot when a program does crash. even the finder can be rebooted without restarting.

[Matrix Agent]

Apple has the most straigtforward software for novices. His family should have a better time with a mac than any PC.

Mail
AOL Messaging
IE
iTunes
A better version of office than exists on Win
Beautiful Interface
An arguably longer lasting machine
Great Community Support Sites like this one...
Ease of Installation
Ease of Upgrading
No Drivers. No Drivers. No Drivers. (Can't tell you how many times this trips up PC users)


Almost any functionality is available for the Mac that you would want for a PC, plus a few extras. Sure if he has a small niche interest a mac may not be able to fill it, but i think it will be just fine, especially for family use.

[vanguard]

Hmm, this is a good question. The things that attracted me to the mac like, Unix underpinnings, rich development kits, and a good UI aren't the things that will win over this person's father.

I would probably say things like:
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It will work with our digital camera.
It will play our movies in the car. (If he wants a notebook)
It will surf the web, support java applets and all the major plug-ins.
It will work with our ISP/email provider.
It can read and create documents that you can use at work.

But the bottom line, Dad, is I like this one better and this is the one that I would use more often if we got it.

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When I was a kid, that would be the most affective way to convince my father to get the one I wanted.

{semi-offtopic}My father loved his three-speed bicycle. He liked it so much that when it was time for my brother and I to get new bikes he insisted that we both get a three speed. We rode them once, were ridiculed by our peers, then we *never* touched them again. Ever. (Of course, we didn't like them much because they were fragile in comparison to the bmx bikes we needed.) What I'm getting at here is that if you buy something the kid doesn't want it will be a waste of money.{/semi-offtopic}

[julguribye]

Macs aren't really that much more expensive. Ever tried to compare a iBook to an PC laptop? You get exactly what you pay for.
Example: First, when the iPod was new everyone though that it was expensive, but when they realized how good it really is they didn't think it any more. (the toshiba drive inisde the iPod actually has the same price as the iPod )

[tagliatelle]

I think that I have already have an upgrade, because my old Performa was smoking like my pengirl. I think I can defend this, because I have learned in school something like analysing. Very popular and the mustbe in Windows. They are saying that you can save money by not buying hardware, buying anything. What is the Point?

[tagliatelle]

What is a weak point from Apple is that when you have broadband that you can't connect an other computer to it right out the box. I have never seen this argument, a very strong suggestion...

[voice-]

I think one thing is all the things we Macers take for granted. Look at XP, they are flshing banners and showing everyone how they have easy multi-user and can edit DV-movies...we've done both for...what? 2 years? And we took it for granted.

Look at Sherlock, it's a powerful searcher and it comes default.

And we have a lot more knowlege of computing than PC-users, so getting help in any case of trouble would be easy as hell...

[ppcebay]

His dad probably know what is the difference between a Ford and a Ferrari. Both r car, they both get you from A to B. One is a better, safer and nicer car than the other. Is the extra cost good there? Well I have in my office a Performa 630, more than 10 years old and a 128 mac that even older. They both still running never had a problem. The software got upgraded but always looked the same. The mac has always beeing easy to use, no problem with compatibility, usually you really plug and play, not plug and pray like windows.

All the major software that run on PC have a mac version so you will be able to exchange documents with any machine. The Virtual PC software works really good so if there is something that your mac cannot do (never happen to me) you will be able to do it with your PC emulator.

Finally, MacOS X wich is the best OS in the world. Is unix base and I love it, easy and really stable. Lets not talk about the network because its stupid prof. Try to network a PC, is you want to get really mad that is a good way.

Well afther all a mac is a better machine, they last long, they rarely have problem and, they r compatiple with 90% of printer scanners and peripheral... If you want to have the least problem mac is the way to go.